Domina Rectina's Library: Herculaneum's Villa of the Papyri
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Domina Rectina’s Library: Herculaneum’s Villa of the Papyri Benefactor Taciturnus The Getty Villa, above, in Los Angeles, California, is an exact replica of the Villa of the Papyri. August 24, 79 CE the Bay of Naples. It was wealthier than For several years before 79 CE, Mount Pompeii, and was densely populated by Vesuvius had been causing earthquakes Roman nobility, aristocrats, plutocrats, and their households. around the Bay of Naples, south of Rome. Still, no one realized that Vesuvius was an We have an eyewitness account of active volcano. what took place beginning the afternoon of August 24, 79 CE. Pliny the Younger, On August 24 of that year, the volcano an eighteen-year-old from an important exploded with one of the largest eruptions Roman family, was staying with his uncle, in recorded European history. Very well Roman naval commander Pliny the Elder, known is the city of Pompeii, a thriving in Misenum at the northern end of the Roman city south of Mount Vesuvius, Bay of Naples. which was buried by the volcanic ash. They began to notice the plumes of Less well known, but equally important, smoke coming from the volcano, and was the Roman city of Herculaneum, Pliny the Elder began to ready his ship to nestled at the foot of the volcano, on sail across the Bay to investigate. Page 13 As Pliny the Elder was heading to his Some of the scrolls recovered were ship, a runner handed him a note from given to Napoléon Bonaparte,3 while Domina (Lady) Rectina, whose villa was others were given to Britain’s George IV.4 at the foot of Vesuvius, right on the bay, Even with such amazing finds, the asking for help. excavations were halted in 1765 due to Domina Rectina’s villa1 was an complaints from residents living above the enormous home, stretching some 820 feet work. The precise location of the villa was (250 meters) along the Bay. The Getty forgotten again.5 Villa in Los Angeles is a reproduction of The Villa of the Papyri her home. Archeologists began to study the Rectina was justly concerned for the eighteenth-century accounts during the members of her household, and also for 1980s, and were eager to recover more of the safety of the villa’s library, containing the Rectina’s library, now known as the over 1,800 scrolls, one of the larger Villa of the Papyri. On February 3, 1987, collections in the ancient world. Baldassare Conticello, the Superintendent Sadly, the debris from the eruption of Archeology for Herculaneum and prevented Pliny the Elder from reaching Pompeii, made the breakthrough. the shore of Herculaneum and Rectina’s By the end of the 1980s, the inventory villa by the bay. He died onboard his ship, comprised 1,826 scrolls and fragments,6 probably from the fumes and ash. with more than 340 almost complete, The villa, its inhabitants, and its library around 970 partly decayed, and over 500 were buried under about sixty-five feet of charred fragments. Most are held at Naples ash and lava, as was all of Herculaneum. National Archaeological Museum. All went silent. The cities were soon As the only Greco-Roman Library to forgotten for over a thousand years. survive intact, the scrolls from the Villa Rediscovery of the Papyri are of immense interest to historians and classicists. On October 19, 1752, cavamonti (diggers) recovered the first scrolls Unrolling the Mystery from Rectina’s villa. It was a moment of The scrolls in the library were extraordinary importance. No one in early carbonized by the heat of the pyroclastic modern Europe had ever seen a scroll flows from Vesuvius. Since this occurred from the ancient world. Rectina’s library very quickly, deprived of oxygen, they was the only one that survived (albeit compacted into fragile blocks, and were charred) from Greco-Roman antiquity.2 preserved by the volcanic rock.7 Rosicrucian Digest No. 2 Plan of the Villa of the Papyri, taken from the book Herculaneum, past, present & future by 2018 Charles Waldenstein, published in 1908. Page 14 Reading the scrolls presents many astronomers capture light beyond the layers of challenges. First, they are rolled ordinary frequencies that human eyes and are blocks and are very fragile. Second, can see. These include the infrared, for they are burned and charred so that, in example. In so doing, investigators are many cases, the ink and the paper are able to retrieve far more information indistinguishable from one another. Once than is available in visible light. Since these hurdles are overcome, translators the infrared range includes vibrations must then painstakingly recover the text at a length of 1000 nm (nanometers from Ancient Greek, and some Latin, no = one billionth of a meter), this is mean feat in itself, as reading manuscripts particularly useful for recovering from the Classical Period often requires burned or otherwise damaged advanced paleographic skills. documents. In the twentieth century, 585 rolls To the naked eye, the text appears and fragments were fully unrolled, and to be black ink on black paper, and 209 partially unrolled. Around 200 were is, in spots, virtually unreadable. deciphered and published, while 150 were Viewed at 1000nm, there is a distinct deciphered but not yet published.8 difference between the reflectivity of An example of a carbonized scroll from Herculaneum, in an image taken from the 1858 book Tesoro letterario di Ercolano (Herculaneum Literary Treasure), by Giacomo Castrucci. Twentieth-century and earlier attempts the ink and the paper, thus rendering met with both successes and tragic failures. the text legible. In some cases, the scrolls exploded into In parallel, other modern hundreds of fragments. technologies, such as digital processing The Answer is in the Stars of ultraviolet scanning, X-rays, and visible light have led to the full reading Beginning in 1999, Brigham of ancient documents. 10 Young University in Utah began using Multispectral Imaging (MSI) on the Other modern efforts include a unrolled scrolls.9 Around 800 trays of team from Kentucky and the Institut de fragments were analyzed and digitized Papyrologie that used X-rays and nuclear over nineteen years, so that scholars could magnetic resonance in 2007 to analyze 11 begin work on deciphering and translating the structure of some of the scrolls, and them. another team in 2009 from the Institut de France and the French National Center for The technique is from the world of Scientific Research that employed X-ray Space Exploration: micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) Multispectral Imaging originated which creates cross-sections of an object in the world of space science, as that can be used to create a 3-D model. Page 15 This technique is similar to the one used hold pleasure (ἡδονή—hēdoné, the root for the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum’s of our modern term “hedonism,”) to be child Mummy Sherit.12 the highest good, he taught that the way Still the problem of unrolling the to pleasure was to live moderately, to learn delicate charred scrolls remained. about the workings of the world, and to limit one’s desires.20 On April 1, 2018, CBS’s 60 Minutes told the story of the competition between two The basis of his philosophy was an Italian scholars, Graziano Ranocchia and adaptation of Democritus’s theory of the Vito Mocella, and Dr. Brent Seales,13 Chair atomic nature of all reality. “Atom” comes of Computer Sciences at the University from the Greek adjective ἄτομος (átomos), of Kentucky, from 2015 to the present, to literally “á” (not) “tomos” (cut or divisable). successfully use the powerful Synchrotron Epicurus held that the elementary X-ray phase-contrast tomography to constituents of nature are undifferentiated virtually unroll the scrolls. Seales’s method matter, in the form of discrete, solid, shows the most promise.14 and indivisible particles (“atoms”) below Efforts are ongoing using Synchrotron the threshold of perception, plus empty X-ray phase-contrast tomography, as space, that is, the complement of matter Domina Rectina’s library at the Villa of the or where matter is not.21 Papyri may someday yield all its secrets, This provided him with a foundation including the newly discovered library of for a kind of spiritual materialism, Latin papyri found in a lower level of the villa.15 leading to an ethical life, no fear of divine retribution nor fate, and no fear of death. From Ashes to Atoms Friendship was of great value to Epicurus, From the hundreds of scrolls already and he considered his followers as a analyzed and translated, we have a very community of friends.22 For Epicurus, the good idea of the content of the library. deities exist, but they did not manipulate The bulk of the collection seems people or the universe, which operates to be works of Epicurean philosophy. according to universal laws.23 Some Large portions of Epicurus’s On Nature scholars believe that for Epicurus, the have been found, as well as works by deities were mental creations,24 an idea other Epicureans such as Philodemus of of mental creation not dissimilar to that Gadara.16 Sections of On Providence and proposed by David K. Stolowitz in a Rose- Logical Questions by the Stoic Philosopher Croix Journal Paper in 2007. Stolowitz Chrysippus have been identified,17 as well proposed that the polytheistic gods might as other literature, including a section of a be mental creations in the Kabbalistic lost work on Plato by Apuleius, the author Formative World (Yetzirah), either being of The Golden Ass.18 emanated from above, or created by What is significant about Epicureanism human consciousness from below.